THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Joseph Welker, Jr.

A Commencement and A Call

Isaiah 6:1-8
I Corinthians 1:26-31

June 10, 2007

I am in a unique position to speak to graduates this morning. A year ago, I stood where many of your parents stood as we relished in the joy of high school graduation as Joseph graduated from Apex High along with many friends. I know the journey of the last year has been very difficult for some of you.

Part of the joy of today is that you have made it through the hard part of your Senior year (which I observe is in many ways harder than the freshman year of college). You have lived through—the tests, the SATs, the applications, the waiting for acceptance, the disappointments of not being accepted and the joy of being accepted… you have lived with your parents' questions about where you plan to go… or have you turned in your application. What you don't know is how many times we wanted to say more to you, but held our tongue.

A year ago, our family stood where many high school families stand—in a place of joy for having made it through the Senior year and ready to celebrate 12 or more years of hard work. Let me warn you, however—that the questions are not over. Just ask Joe. You may get a break for a few months, but soon your parents will be asking questions like: "What do you plan to major in?" And their friends and your friends will ask the same questions—pressing you to make life long decisions on the spot. We're still asking Joe those questions. He is not always happy about that! My suggestion is for you to get some bullet point answers ready for all of us. Just placate us, if you will with some answer. We'll all be happier!

This year we also experienced the graduation from college of our daughter Anna. And fool that I was, I thought this would be the end of worrying about Anna and her future. In my mind, my state of parental denial, I thought Anna would graduate, get a job and live happily ever after. I know better, but I loved the illusion. Truth is, she is off for a summer job, then a job for year in Baltimore… and then… God only knows. I mean it, only God knows. And bless Anna, we will still be asking questions like, "What do you plan to do after next year?" My question is, "And the job… how much does it pay and is there health care provided?"

Hardly theological questions from the preacher parent. And as important as those questions are in a practical sense, I think there are some other practical questions that have a more spiritual or theological tone to them, that are no less practical or real in nature. In my business of faith, we call them the questions of your calling.

I didn't hear any one use that word when I graduated from High School and College. The word we used then was vocation—which is actually from the same word—vocare' meaning, "to call." It is a concept that is hard for many to understand. Part of the reason is that people have a difficulty distinguishing between their jobs, their professions, and their calling in life. They don't always merge neatly and nicely.

I served on a Career and Personal Counseling Service Board for almost a decade and what intrigued me is how many people used our service in their mid-life. Apparently they graduated from college doing the practical thing—getting a job, many getting well paid, getting healthcare… thinking that this was the secret to happiness.

And why wouldn't they think that? It's what they were told by their culture and many of their parents for most of their lives.

But at midlife, a strange thing sometimes happens. They get enough money to buy the house, to be secure financially—to achieve what we were told is the American dream… only to wake up in their 40s to discover they are very unhappy doing what they do for 40 hours or more a week. Can't imagine doing it for another 15-20-25 years. So, they come in their midlife crisis to try again—to discover something I tell you is very practical—their calling—what God has called them to be and do with their lives.

So today I want to ask the graduates—to consider their calling… and for the rest of us to reconsider our calling. "Is God calling you to anything?" "Or to anywhere?" It's a good time to do it. When you graduate, they call the ceremonies, a commencement ceremony.

Think about what that means. It means that the day you walk across the stage you are not ending something but starting something new. That's what commencement means… to start something new. So, what is the new thing God may be calling you to at this moment in your life and mine?

The scripture is full of call stories- and not all of them are to become pastors or preachers.

Moses, was not a preacher—he was a shepherd—but God called him to a ministry of justice—God's people were oppressed and Moses was the leader to lead his people out of slavery. Later, God used him as a politician to begin to form a nation. One gift Moses didn't have was that of speaking. But his brother Aaron had that gift and God called Aaron to be the spokesperson for the ministry.

In our OT reading today, we find Isaiah—I assume at midlife—being commissioned and called. He hears the heavenly courts speaking with God and God speaking with the heavenly courts. And overhearing the conversation between God and the heavenly courts-- knowing there is a need for his people to hear a word about justice and righteousness in their social relations—knowing they need someone to speak truth to power and politics… Isaiah hears God asking this question: "Who is it that we can send? Who is it that can go forth?" And Isaiah, though feeling very unworthy—but in the experience of God's mercy and in the experience of God's awesome presence, responds by saying, "O Lord, send me" He volunteers. And he commences to follow his calling and seeks his commissioning… knowing that in his life God's purposes will be fulfilled and God will be glorified.

I hear Paul alluding to the same thing as he talks to the Corinthian Christians. Like Isaiah, they hardly feel qualified to receive a call from God.

Unlike some of you, but like many of the rest of us—they are not the smartest, the brightest or the most likely to succeed at anything in their class. They are living in a city of well educated and sophisticated people. They may seem like the least likely to receive a call from God. But they are wrong—for Paul says,
"Consider your call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards (not everyone was valedictorian or summa cum laude), not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…"
In other words—brothers and sisters— don't think God only uses the best and brightest in the world—though God uses such people—God can use even you.

So, consider your calling…

Perhaps Paul was trying to help them understand that the abundant life that Jesus talked about is not so much the life people were talking about in the Corinthian dream or the life we talk about in the American dream.

It has little to do with getting rich or becoming middle class or staying off welfare as an end in itself. It has little to do with becoming smarter and smarter or more sophisticated as an end in itself. These are means to an end at best… and the end to which it is a means? To discover your calling—and in discovering your calling, discover the abundant or full life God has in store for you. So, brothers and sisters, consider your calling…

Your calling is likely connected to something God needs to have done in the world. Biblically, that seems to be when God comes calling. There has never been a time when there wasn't something God needed having done.

There are timeless needs as we deal with poverty, issues of war and peace, social inequities and justice, spiritual confusion—they seem to have been around for a long time. God needs people to deal with those issues.

Today God seems to have special needs for people to care about the environment—to figure out how we might clean up the mess we have made of God's world. God has always needed people to become better educated in dealing with the complexities of caring for God's world.

We need people of faith involved in economics, biology, medicine— not for the purpose of helping better a corporation's bottom line—but for the purpose of making God's world a better place for God's children to live in. "Whom shall I send?"— God is calling… The Lord is waiting for someone to answer, "Here I am; send me."

We also need people of faith in politics— and I'm not talking about someone interested in using faith as a means to further their personal political goals or even to further the goals of their particular faith. But we do need people of faith who, like Calvin, know that politics is a means God uses to care for the human community. I always liked the story I heard that Calvin saw the sewage system of Geneva as something God desired… because a good sewage system could save a lot of lives.

Today, God needs people who care about educating all of our children so that they can leave poverty behind and contribute to our society. God needs people to make sure that the poorest of the poor are not left out just because they have no ability to make campaign contributions. God needs people of integrity to deal with political issues that touch all of our lives. Who hears that call and is willing to answer by saying, "Here am I; send me."

We need people in the business world—who understand the importance of community values and how business can be linked to compassion, and people who are willing to bring an ethic of compassion and integrity both inside and outside the workplace. "Whom shall I send?" Someone here and now needs to answer, "Here I am; send me?"

There are children to be raised in our midst. Someone hears the voice of God saying, "Who will bring these children through adolescence? Who will parent them and who will support parents trying to raise children… to educate them and to develop their minds and their souls. Who will help them come into adulthood and to character and to health and to wholeness and to a sense of who they are and who God calls them to be?" There are voices among us today who are answering, "Here am I, send me?"

Not every call comes through a job, of course. There is a grieving friend nearby. The Lord is saying, "Who will go and sit with them?" Drink a cup of coffee and hear the story of the their grief one more time? You don't need a Phd to do that. Is there someone who feels a holy nudge and will come forward to say, "Here I am, send me?"

There are people in need all over the world. Some live in far away places like Pala, Guatemala or in the middle of West Virginia or in downtown Raleigh and some about 500 yards from our church. Who is able to be involved in one of the ministries of care and compassion that lets people know God has not forgotten them. Is there anyone willing to respond to one of those possibilities to do the work God needs to have done? Is there a voice that can answer, "Here I am, send me?"

Where is the Lord calling you?

That is a question I hope the graduates will be asking themselves as they make key life decisions in the years ahead. It's also a question that I hope all of us will keep asking ourselves wherever we are in our life's journey. I hope all of us will continue to "consider our calls."

In so doing, we may discover not only the work God needs to have done, but the work that God may actually use to bring us the joy we have been seeking most of our lives. Amen.

Note: Thanks to John DeBevoise for some of the ideas used to illustrate places where people might feel called.